Work on The Weekends

I am a lowly software developer wage slave. But I still do this. Here’s why.

I am new to professional software development — roughly two years of experience, one at my current company. I am still cutting my teeth, and solving business problems is the fastest way to improve.

I work for a consultancy, and the work is varied. We engage directly with the board of directors at most of our client companies. This means the direction we receive and the problems we are tasked with come straight from competent, intelligent, business-savvy leaders.

What does this make the company I work for? In the abstract, a ceaseless source of business problems to solve. But not just any problems. You see, business leaders know the most about how to make their company succeed. Therefore, the problems they uncover are the most critical to business success. By solving them, I learn:

1. The skills required to solve a business's most critical problems (extremely valuable).
2. What problems typically hold back businesses (entrepreneurial knowledge).
3. The ancillary skills (social, organisational) needed to solve complex problems inside multivarious businesses.

Compare that to Leetcode, and it’s pretty clear which problem set grows my capabilities faster. And I’m not just improving. I’m becoming indispensable to my company.

Takeaway

If you’re at a consultancy or a good business, you will be given essential business problems. As long as you can get over the potential lack of recognition and pay, you should view these as what they are:

The greatest set of training exercises you could possibly imagine.

Solve them, use them to grow, and when the time is right, you’ll have all the skills you need to move on to a better company or start your own.